L'Oreal fires transgender model

Life

Friday 1 September 2017 - 11:25pm

L'Oreal had tapped Bergdorf, a 29-year-old model, DJ and trans activist whose father is Jamaican, as one of the five newest faces of its #allworthit campaign.
Photo: Instagram screenshot via Munroe Bergdorf

PARIS – French cosmetics giant L'Oreal on Friday confirmed it had dropped a British transgender model over comments the company deemed "at odds with our values," after she was hired as part of a diversity campaign.

Transgender model Munroe Bergdorf responds to L’Oréal after they fired her for speaking out against white supremacy. pic.twitter.com/sZnxj1E5JL

L'Oreal had tapped Bergdorf, a 29-year-old model, DJ and trans activist whose father is Jamaican, as one of the five newest faces of its #allworthit campaign to introduce the five new shades of its True Match face makeup.

The foundation make-up boasts 28 unique shades ranging from very light to dark brown in a bid to match the myriad different skin tones and textures of people worldwide.

According to British Vogue, Bergdorf was the first transgender woman to be featured in a L’Oreal Paris UK campaign.

But controversy erupted when Bergdorf took to Facebook in a now-deleted post to react to events in the US city of Charlottesville, where a woman was killed on August 12 after an avowed white supremacist rammed his car into a group of anti-racism counter-protesters.